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October 31, 2025

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COMMUNITY

Jun 18, 2000

So, uh, what century did you say this is?

By Tom Clifford

Whisper it softly but these are bad times we live in, literally.

COMMUNITY

Jun 18, 2000

Learn a new language (and how!) in two weeks

By Angela Jeffs

Setsuko Iki may have retired in 1998 as a professor at Sanno Junior College in Tokyo, but she has not stopped working. As the leading Japanese authority on Suggestopaedia-Desuggestopaedia, systems of intensive language teaching initiated by Dr. Georgi Lozonov in Bulgaria in the 1960s and then developed...

COMMUNITY

Jun 18, 2000

Commemoration of a musical pilgrimage

By David Wheeler

"A Shakuhachi Odyssey -- Enchanted by Timbres of Heaven" is a collection of autobiographical essays, cultural musings, musical stories and more. It beat out over 200 competitors to receive last year's Rennyo Sho, a nonfiction literature prize sponsored by the Honganji Temple Foundation and supported...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Jun 18, 2000

Three weeks is a lifetime for pet crickets

By Amy Chavez

Welcome to Japan's rainy season, also known as the Insect Season. Although I live in an old Japanese house with generations of insects going back as far as the Heian Period, I also live with the comfort of knowing I'll never starve to death. "Getemono," the Japanese word for "gross things to eat," includes...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE

Jun 18, 2000

Toshio Sugihara

By Vivienne Kenrick

Recently the College Women's Association of Japan held an anniversary celebration. "Music and Tea" was an afternoon program commemorating 25 years of the activities of Volunteers for Blind Students, a group that is part of CWAJ's education program. "In April, The Japan Vocational Development Center for...

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Jun 18, 2000

By Jean Pearce

I have perhaps the world's longest list of You have been here too long if. . . It is often easy to see oneself in such lists, recognizing a trait you have absorbed since living here. It has become an automatic reflex, unnoticed until you return home and realize that no one else does it. My moment of...

COMMUNITY

Jun 16, 2000

Healing relationships bloom in 'renga'

By Toshimi Horiuchi

A Japanese proverb says: Doki ai motomu (Like minds are drawn to one another).

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Jun 14, 2000

By Jean Pearce

In Sunday's column, I told readers why I will be leaving Japan while, appropriately, explaining what is required for foreigners to get married in Japan, which is what we did. I also said I would explain what would replace this column. Actually, I can't do that. It is up to you. I know there are a lot...

COMMUNITY

Jun 11, 2000

Cybird flies big plans for mobile Net future

By Angela Jeffs

Kazutomo Robert Hori It came as a very pleasant surprise when an old friend rang from Osaka to tell me that her son's business had taken off like a rocket. The last time I saw Robert was at his wedding seven years ago -- a spectacular if crazy event held on top of a mountain in Hiroshima Prefecture....

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Jun 11, 2000

Haven't got the yang of Japanese gardening

By Amy Chavez

I came home the other day and noticed my neighbor had cut my grass, trimmed my trees and watered my plants. This is normal. I apologized profusely, thanked Ueda-san repetitively and she said, as always, "Oh, it was nothing."

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Jun 11, 2000

How to say goodbye

By Jean Pearce

I have over the years researched readers' questions diligently, but never have I been quite as well prepared as for this column, on how to get married in Japan. I would like to tell you why. On May 25, William Sherman and I proceeded through the process as outlined below. Bill has had three postings...

COMMUNITY

Jun 9, 2000

Getting in touch with your animal nature

I did it. Finally dipped into dobutsu uranai (animal fortunetelling), the Japanese fengshui of human relationships. For the past year I've endured the discomfort of having acquaintances whisper across the table at lunch: "I know what you are, you're a monkey. The way you slurp your noodles like that?...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.

Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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